Friday, July 3, 2009

I've known David for a while. I'm not sure where we officially met. But, we reconnected at the Arnold Classic in Columbus back in March. David asked me if I would coach him. I have been coaching a couple of people online, so I took David up on his offer.

I might mention David is 63 years old. At the Arnold, he used the 16s and put up impressive numbers in the biathlon (191 Snatches and 106 Jerks). However, after reviewing his videos it was clear that he needed some technical work. Initially, we stuck with the 16s because we thought that is what he would use for his competitions the remainder of the year. However, when we saw the new rankings and qualification requirements for Chicago, we decided that we should go ahead and set heavier goals instead of faster goals with the lighter weights.

David is very strong. I always felt like the 16s looked light. I also think he was training at paces that would have led to burn out long term. We decided that we wanted him to move towards competing with the 24s in Chicago. So, the first step toward that was to get him to the Level 2 with the 20s.

David hit level2 numbers in training (with video) a few times. I told him to hold off on video submission because I wanted him to do this level in front of an audience at the recent Atlanta meet, and it turned out that he got to do it in front of Valery.

David not only achieved the Level 2 numbers (he is also considerably lighter than he was in Columbus), but he won best lifter for the meet. He did 90 Jerks and 70L/90R Snatches. Not too long after the completion of the meet, I received an email from Eric Liford telling me that David did extremely well at the competiton. Eric went on to say how good David looked technically. I was quite proud.

Now, David is well positioned to hit level 1 numbers in Chicago and make a great showing with the 24kg bells.

I've coached David. I've written workouts for him on a weekly basis since late March. Since there are challenges with online coaching, we've had our ups and downs. But, David has put consistent time in under the bells and worked very hard. He's taken my technical advices to heart and really worked to improve. He's a great example of what a little coaching and a lot of hard work can do. Congrats David!